Research into climate change and
advanced manufacturing will see substantially increased federal support
next year if President Obama gets his
way, as will education in the STEM
fields — science, technology, education and mathematics. The president’s
budget blueprint for fiscal year 2013,
unveiled February 13, calls for slight
increases across most research spending categories. But in some areas, the
recommended spending boosts would
vastly outpace inflation.

Proposed spending on research anddevelopment generally, both civilian anddefense, would total $140.8 billion forfiscal year 2013. That’s about the same asthis year’s $138.9 billion after account-ing for estimated inflation of 1. 4 percent.(All subsequent funding changes in thisarticle have been adjusted to accountfor this projected inflation.) But thenondefense portion of that total wouldrise nearly $3.1 billion to $64.9 billion, anet increase of 3. 5 percent.

Obama wants more than $500 million in additional funding for research
into renewable energy and energy efficiency, a smaller hike than one turned
down by Congress last year. Much of this
new money would go to cutting the costs
of electric vehicles, geothermal energy
and biomass fuels. Funding for solar and
wind energy would sag slightly.

During a press briefing, White House
science adviser John Holdren emphasized the president’s commitment to
revitalizing the nation’s manufacturing
enterprise. The Obama administration
wants to turn around years of flagging
investments by directing $2.2 billion in
federal dollars into this area — a whopping 17. 6 percent increase over FY 2012.

Much of that funding would go to the
Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology, which
would see its R&D allocation more than
triple under the White House proposal.
The former Bureau of Standards would
be the lead agency in the $1 billion
National Network for Manufacturing and Innovation, which would fund
advanced manufacturing research.

“As soon as the administration
focused on innovation, the role that
R&D plays in promoting economic
growth and prosperity, it immediately
became clear we were eventually going
to be talking about manufacturing,” says
NIST director Patrick Gallagher. With
more than two-thirds of all engineers
outside universities and the federal
government employed by manufactur-ing-based firms, this sector “supports
the lion’s share of private sector investments in research and development,”
he notes. — With additional reporting by
Science News staff